1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus of a liquid droplet discharge recording type and an image forming method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as an image forming apparatus, an image forming apparatus of a liquid droplet discharge recording type has been known which transports a sheet with respect to a liquid droplet discharge head including a plurality of nozzles and discharges liquid droplets, such as ink droplets, from the nozzles to the sheet to form an image on the sheet.
In these type of image forming apparatuses, there is an image forming apparatus in which, when the number of times the liquid droplets are discharged from the nozzle reaches a fixed threshold value, the discharge operation of a nozzle is disabled (the nozzle is not used), and two nozzles adjacent to the disabled nozzle are used to complement an image defect (for example, JP2007-118446A).
However, in some cases, even when the image defect is uniformly complemented by the two nozzles adjacent to the discharge-disabled nozzle, a white line is generated in the image to be formed.
JP2011-201121A discloses an image forming apparatus which changes the size of liquid droplets depending on the discharge order of two nozzles adjacent to a nozzle in a discharge defective state and nozzles adjacent to the outside of the two adjacent nozzles and performs a complementary process using the two adjacent nozzles.